I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, which was decorated with water spots because I apparently brushed my teeth like a barbarian. I probably flossed like a maniac, too, but that was only once every six months—right before dentist visits.

I had been joking about the Bill of Rights costume, but one perk of being an artist and having familiarity with a range of fabrics and mediums was that I’d been able to whip a costume together last night and this morning. I was now a full-sized Bill of Rights.

I stared at my reflection and wondered if I’d taken the whole “not slutty” thing a bit to the extreme. I looked like a rolled up newspaper. My legs stuck out the bottom of the costume just above the knees, my arms were attached to matching sleeves so only my hands were free, and my face visible by an oval cutout. I’d made the whole costume from a fabric that was light enough to bend but would still look like paper, and I’d spent several hours painstakingly writing down what I could fit of the bill on my costume.

If I hadn’t worked so hard on it, I probably would’ve backed out. I looked ridiculous, but that was probably for the best, anyway. I was already walking a thin line by agreeing to come to the Halloween party with Ryan in the first place. Trying to dress sexy or hope that he’d like how I looked was putting one foot into some very dangerous territory. When I’d freshly been caught up in him, I was ready to forget all about Paris. The day he took me to Galleon, I probably would’ve gone along with anything he wanted. But time apart had been good. I’d worked on the art and I’d had a chance to remember why it was so important to me.

I felt whole when I was working with my hands and making something. I was addicted to the challenge of trying to improve, and to the final moment of satisfaction when I saw how my hard work and focus had taken something rough and turned it into a completed project. In a perfect world, I could still pursue that and get the guy I wanted, but the world wasn’t perfect, and I knew my future in art led through Paris.

Maybe I should’ve gone dressed as my acceptance letter to art school in Paris just to be sure I kept my thoughts in the right place.

There was a knock at my door.

I opened it up to see Lilith, who was dressed in one of her normal outfits, but it was spattered with blood and there was a perfect, bloody handprint around her shin. She was holding a rolling pin covered in dried blood.

“Nice costume,” I said.

“What costume?” she asked. “I just didn’t have time to shower after my date.”

“You know you’re creepy when your best friend isn’t a hundred percent sure that was a joke.”

“Who said we’re best friends?” she asked.

I punched her shoulder. “I did.”

She gave me a rare smirk. “Fine. If you’re going to be weird about it, we can call it that. And I might kind of like Halloween, okay? But if you tell anyone I was in a good mood, I’ll murder you and everybody will just think your corpse is a decoration until tomorrow. I’ll be in Mexico before they find out.”

“Yeah right,” I said, putting my hands on my knees and leaning forward. The top of my costume extended about a foot and a half past my head, which let me swing it at Lilith like I was trying to swat a fly with a newspaper. I swung my hips around and started chasing her out into the hallway until I finally pinned her against the wall with a solid blow.

To my surprise, she was fighting to hold back a smile. “That was the dumbest looking thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“I’ve known the Chamberson brothers a few months,” said Ryan, “so I can’t say the same.”

“Ryan!” I squawked. I straightened too fast and the weight of my costume started pulling me backwards. I pinwheeled my arms for balance, but it was useless. I thudded to the floor, but hardly felt the impact because of all the padding.

Ryan and Lilith stood above me, looking down.

Ryan was dressed in a suit, but he had some kind of baby carrier strapped to his chest with a bag of sugar inside.

“A sugar daddy,” I said from the ground. “Nice.”

He grinned. “You’re the only one who got it so far. I knew I liked you.”

“Someone is going to have to help me up.”

“Please don’t,” Lilith said. “I kind of want to watch her flop around and try on her own.”

Ryan extended a hand. “I feel like I got my fill from watching her swat you with her giant, oversized head.”

I let him pull me to my feet, but frowned. “You just mean the head of my costume, right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Your real head is the perfect size.”

“He said you’re perfect. And he likes you. Gross,” Lilith made a gagging motion. “If you’re going to get her pregnant, make sure it’s a girl. Little boys are unbearable once they hit middle school age, and I can’t promise I wouldn’t off the kid as soon as he asks if my phone had any games.”

“I’m not even going to respond to that,” I said.

“That counts as a response,” Lilith said.

“You should’ve told me you two got along so well,” Ryan said to Lilith. “I would’ve offered to be your personal driver a long time ago.”

“You’re driving us to the party?” I asked. It was probably a stupid question, but my head was still spinning from using myself as a human flyswatter a few seconds ago.

“That’s the plan. At least it was, until I realized I could kidnap you and pull a Nicolas Cage from National Treasure. Now I’m kind of tempted just to be able to say I did it.”

“Actually.” I held up my finger. I knew I was being the stereotypical, obnoxious “um, actually” girl, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Nicolas Cage steals the Declaration of Independence in that movie.”

Ryan smirked. “Didn’t realize you were a fan of the late great Nicolas Cage and his impressive filmography.”

“Nicolas Cage died?” Lilith asked.

“He should have,” Ryan said.

“That’s horrible.” I couldn’t help laughing. “I happen to like Nicolas Cage, the actor and the person, thank you very much.”

“Wait,” Ryan said. “Are you serious? What could you possibly like about him, except Con Air. I’ll admit, I kind of liked that movie.”

“He’s probably immortal, for one. Does anyone know how old he is? No. He’s also hilariously bad with his money. He’s bought a shark, a genuine collection of shrunken heads, and a private island right next door to Johnny Depp’s private island, just to name a few.”

Ryan was holding back laughter and Lilith was giving the I’ve-heard-this-speech-a-dozen-times-already look to the ceiling.

“Did he really buy a shark?”

“That’s the least believable part to you?”

“It’s just the most impractical. I mean, where do you keep it? Aren’t you worried it’s going to break free and eat you?”

“Sharks can’t walk on land, dumbass,” Lilith said.

Ryan glared at her. “It’d just need to aim one perfect jump. Free Willy style.”

I nodded. “He’s right. It’d be a kamikaze move, but it could work.”

“God,” she rolled her eyes. “You dorks deserve each other. And on second thought, don’t even make a girl. Your DNA needs to die off with you.”

Ryan shook his head and laughed. “The fact that I’m having this discussion with a giant replica of the Bill of Rights makes me feel like I’m in some kind of weird fever dream.”

Lilith swung her rolling pin at Ryan’s elbow.

He jumped back and grabbed his arm. “What the Hell?”

“Just wanted to prove you weren’t dreaming,” she said with a casual shrug.

I’d known the work I did for Ryan was meant for a party of over two thousand people, but the sheer scope of the event hadn’t clicked until we arrived at Galleon. The lobby was untouched by Halloween decorations, to my surprise, but I hardly noticed with the huge groups of costumed people heading for the elevators. I had a moment of giddy pride when I saw my posters plastered all over the lobby. I’d already seen them several times as I came and went, but the excitement of seeing what was really my first officially commissioned piece of art on display still hadn’t faded.

My pride was short-lived, because a quick glance told me that no other women here were worried about dying first in the event of a Hollywood horror showdown. In fact, it looked like they might actually be competing to see who had dressed provocatively enough to be killed first.

I sucked in a breath, straightened my back, and soldiered on. Let them flaunt their boobs. Psh. A real man doesn’t care about cleavage, he cares about an inalienable right to bear arms, right? And guess what, that particular right was plastered right across my butt. That’s right. I was a dirty girl, and I wasn’t going to apologize.

“No decorations down here?” I asked Ryan.

“Bruce wouldn’t let it happen. He said it was bad enough having to allow this ridiculous party in his building without us ‘tainting’ the lobby while we were at it. But the joke’s on him, because I put a few fake spiders on the toilet seats down here and William helped me booby trap his office.”

Lilith stopped in her tracks. “You guys booby trapped Bruce’s office?” She thought about that for a few seconds, and then something like a robot’s idea of what a smile was supposed to look like touched her face.

By the time we reached the elevators, Lilith was lost in the shuffle of people, but somehow, Ryan managed to stay close by my side.

“Should we wait for her?” asked Ryan.

“No. She would ditch us before long, anyway.” I let the crowd jostle me closer to the elevators while I tried to make a battle plan. I’d accepted Ryan’s invite and known he might have only been saying I could come as a courtesy. It was highly likely that he hadn’t even planned on making an effort of finding me in the crowd once I arrived. Instead, he’d shown up to give me a ride, and now he was talking like he was planning on sticking together.

The art school half of my brain was flashing warning alarms, but the female side of my brain was twirling a bra on its fingertip while it sipped a sloppy martini.

I started hearing the music as soon as we were in the elevator. We rode it up to the top floor and had to squeeze our way out through a man dressed as a vampire and a woman dressed as a succubus—or maybe she was just dressed as a woman in her underwear with a tail and wings, I couldn’t tell the difference.

My breath caught at the sight of the party. The ceiling trailed up at least four or five stories. Huge swinging props were dangling from the ceiling and swaying, including one of the ghosts I'd made. A fog machine clouded the floor and drifted up to the sky, creating little swirls of mist where the ghost broke through. I wanted to clap with delight. It looked so real and spooky. It was like I'd stepped inside one of the inexplicably high-budget Halloween parties from my favorite old-school horror movies. Orange and black lights pulsed in the fog like some kind of creepy thunderstorm waging at our feet, and a live band dressed as zombies played on a stage in the center of the room.

There was too much to take in. There were decorative touches everywhere I looked, from the hollowed out pumpkins holding the punch, to the ramshackle little huts that had been erected and scattered around the party. I could just barely see shrunken heads and all kinds of gross but wonderful props jammed inside them.

“This was all you?” I asked. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the music.

He shrugged. “Sort of. I basically chugged a few energy drinks, stayed up late, and wrote down all the ideas. I gave it to William and told him to use his money to make it happen.”

I grinned. “You did a little more than that to get one measly ghost, a Frankenstein, and some posters out of me.”

“Well, I think that ghost is clearly the centerpiece of the party. I needed to make sure the artist was capable.”

“It was so important that you never checked how it was coming or came to see it until right before the party?”

He sighed. “If you’re trying to corner me into admitting you’re special and I gave you way more attention than every other part of setting this party up, it’ll never happen.”

I smiled contentedly. “That was close enough to an admission. I’ll take it.”

He smiled wryly and grabbed my hand. “Come on, let’s see if you can dance in that ridiculous costume.”

“Pause!” I said. “I think you’re going to have to find some alcohol and put it in me before you get me to dance in this.”

“You want me to put it in you?” he asked. There was a glint in those light brown eyes that told me everything I needed to know.

I cleared my throat. “There’s a lot of things you need to put in me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “If this turns into a play on words about your costume, I’m going to be disappointed.”

I laughed. “First, you need to put an apology in my ears for being a dickbag in high school.”

“I thought I already did that, but I’ll say sorry as many times as you want me to.” He leaned forward and then stopped, grinning. “Your ears are kind of behind the weird little sleeve thing around your head, though.”

I tugged at my costume until my ear popped out and then tilted it toward him.

His voice was a warm rush of air in my ear. “I’m sorry for being a dickbag in high school.”

He stayed dangerously close to me, but pulled back enough that I could see his face. “Now, what do you want me to put in you next? Because if you’re all out of ideas, I’ve got a few.”

I wanted to laugh, but the only sound that came out was a choked kind of gurgle. I’d expected some slow flirtation and a lot of trying to read the tea leaves to gauge his interest. This was more like a shotgun to the face. “You know how master chess players are always like, ten moves ahead?”

“What, are you going to say I’m checkmated now or something?”

"No. I'm going to say I was always horrible at chess, and I was hoping some more clever follow-ups would come after the put it in my ear thing." I shrugged and grinned. "That was the best I had."

He smiled in that way guys have been smiling since the stone age—the one where they have that obnoxiously charming twinkle in their eye that says they’re reading you like a book, and they’re on the part where the sexy music starts playing and the light dims.

I licked my lips. I wanted to take a snapshot of the moment, because I knew it was a crossroad. Two paths forked out in front of me. One was safe. It led to the future I’d been carefully building for years. It led to the thing I’d been dreaming about as long as I could remember. It was the smart choice—the obvious choice.

The other was dangerous. It followed a guy I still didn't really know. It was the impulsive path and the reckless one, where nothing was guaranteed and nothing was set in stone. But when I thought about the path that led to art school, I pictured a plain, boring door. When I thought about the one that led towards Ryan, it felt like I’d be walking into the kind of fantasy life I only saw in movies, where every day was electric with potential.

Maybe there was a third choice. I didn’t have to marry myself to one path or the other. I could have fun tonight, and I could stop worrying so much about what might happen in a few months and just focus on tonight.

“Excuse me.” A man and a woman walked up to stand beside us. It was Bruce Chamberson and his wife, Natasha. “You were one of the artists who worked on the decorations, right?” he asked.

I’d barely spoken with Bruce, but somehow, seeing him inside his own building made him all the more intimidating. “That depends,” I said slowly. “Do you like them?”

He scanned the ceiling and the room with a look between disgusted and confused. “For what they are, sure.”

Ryan leaned in to whisper in my ear again. “From him, that’s a compliment.”

“Thank you. But where’s your costume?” I asked him.

He grimaced and looked down at his perfectly normal suit. “You know that commercial with the guy in the suit? The one where he says he’s mayhem?”

“You’re him?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be… sabotaging things? You know, getting in character?”

“No. I’m not him. I was just wondering if you’d seen the commercials. Always thought those were funny. I don’t wear costumes, I think it’s childish.”

His wife, Natasha, gave me an amused smile. “He’s great at parties, isn’t he?”

I grinned. “Reminds me of a friend of mine, a little bit.”

“What are you, a newspaper?” Natasha asked.

“I’m the Bill of Rights. It’s a long story.” I took in her costume. She had small pillows taped to almost every inch of her body. “What are you supposed to be?”

“I’m accident prone.”

I frowned in thought as I tried to dig out the wordplay, but Ryan's chuckling laughter drew my attention. "What? Am I missing the joke?"

“No,” she sighed with a smile. “Like, literally. I’m very accident prone, and Bruce said this was the perfect excuse to dress me in a way where I couldn’t hurt myself. What was it you said?” she asked him.

“For one night of the year, I can take you out and know you’re not going to crack your head or break an ankle when I take my eyes off you. Everybody will think it’s a costume.”

“But you’ve still been watching me like a hawk,” she said, then she got on her tiptoes and gave his chin an adorable little kiss.

He cupped hers in his thumb and forefinger and kissed her forehead with an unapologetic shrug. “I’m overprotective.”

She smiled at me. “He’s just lucky I didn’t really have a costume I was excited to wear. He’s also lucky I love naps, and I always wondered how comfy this would be. Lay down anywhere and you’re automatically in a bed. It’s perfect.”

I laughed.

Ryan cleared his throat.

Bruce dug in his jacket and tried to hand Ryan a cough drop.

“I don’t have a cough,” Ryan said. “When someone clears their throat while making eye contact, it usually means you’re doing something wrong, like interrupting a man who was trying to convince a woman to dance.”

Bruce looked from Ryan to me, and then nodded seriously. “Just one question, then. Have you seen William? He was supposed to be here by now.”

Ryan groaned. “No, I haven’t seen him, and I’m not thrilled to hear he’s missing.”

“That makes two of us,” Bruce said.

“Why?” I asked.

Ryan sighed. “When you can’t find William, it’s usually because he’s doing something stupid. I also invited my roommate, Steve, and he’s basically William minus the subtlety. The two of them missing at the same time is a recipe for bad.”

"You're right about William, at least. He has a history of trying to pull stupid pranks on Halloween, too. Good luck."

“You too.”

Bruce and Natasha left, and Ryan turned his attention back to me. He looked around the party and then gave a quick shrug. “You were saying I needed to put something in you. Why don’t I start with a little alcohol?”

“I would allow that.”

We grabbed drinks and headed upstairs to an area where a balcony with a glass wall overlooked the party below. There were tables and more Halloween decorations set up, as well as some old-fashioned TVs playing classic, black and white horror movies.

“Nice touch,” I said, pointing to one of the TVs. “What is this room for, anyway? I don’t think it’s exactly normal for an office building to have… whatever this is on the top floor.”

“It’s William’s fault. He wouldn’t budge until Bruce agreed to plug a party venue in at the top of the building. He claimed it would be for schmoozing new clients and that sort of thing. I have no idea if they actually do that, but it does make for a good holiday party spot.”

“Rich people,” I said slowly as I looked around the room and tried to imagine having so much money that you could afford something like this in New York if you didn’t use it all the time.

He nodded and gave a distracted smile as we took a seat near the corner. The music wasn’t as loud up here, and I didn’t have to raise my voice to be heard anymore.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head, but then shrugged. “I mean, not wrong. No. But every time I’ve had anything close to feelings for a girl, it only takes two or three days for all the romantic ideas to fade away.”

“Wow,” I said with a half-smile. “It’s a good thing I never came close to falling for you, or that would be a little disappointing.”

He licked his lips and his eyes met mine. Even from across the table, I could almost feel a spark of energy pass between us. “Right. It’s a good thing you never had feelings for me. Because then I really wouldn’t know what to do.”

“You’re going to have to elaborate,” I said. “I know women are supposed to be good at reading between the lines on this kind of stuff, but I’ve always been horrible at it. Also, I feel really weird having a serious conversation like this while I’m dressed as The Bill of Rights. I just thought that was worth noting.”

He hardly seemed to hear me. The look on his face was deadly serious, and seeing him look at me that way made my mouth feel dry and my stomach feel fuzzy and warm.

“It has been a lot more than two or three days, Emily. None of my feelings are fading away. They’re only getting stronger. I tried not to lead you on because I was so sure it’d happen, and now… Now I’m just sitting here wondering why I’ve waited so long to take what I want.”

I bit my lip. His gaze was magnetic. It sucked me in and refused to let me look away.

I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe. Paris seemed distant and silly and unimportant in that moment. Deep down, I knew I’d regret it later. I knew Paris and my future would come rising back up. I knew all of that, but I couldn’t stop my pounding heart from doing the thinking and the talking.

“Well,” I breathed. “Whoever this girl is. You’d better go to her, then. It sounds serious.”

The corner of his mouth inched upward in a hypnotizingly slow way until he was showing just the faintest glimmer of a smirk. “You’re right.”

He stood up, pushed his chair in, and waved to me as he started walking away from the table and back down toward the party.

I frowned and sat up straight. Wait, what? I stood from my chair and involuntarily took a step toward him. Before I had time to have a mental meltdown, he turned around and his smirk widened into a grin as he walked back toward me and reached for my hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t resist.”

“What? Giving me a heart attack?” I let him take my hand in his, and there was no mistaking the way his fingers felt against mine. It was soft, perfect, and full of intention. The music thudded from downstairs, sending small shockwaves through my chest. My head felt light, almost weightless. The only thought my brain seemed to have room for was to wish with all of my being that I was wearing anything other than a ridiculous Bill of Rights costume that didn’t make me look like a giant, rolled up newspaper with a face.

“I warned you that every relationship I’ve ever been in has failed, right?”

I tried to keep a straight face as I answered. “Who says I’m willing to be in a relationship with you? We’re just holding hands.”

“Yeah, but we’re not even using protection.”

I laughed. “Wow. You’re right. I think I can already feel the missed period coming. This is more serious than I thought.”

He slid his hand around the back of my costume and gave a slight squeeze as he raised an eyebrow. “I think I just fondled your rights, too. So, yeah, you could say it’s getting very serious.”

I bit back a smile. I’d never felt this kind of energy before. There was an unstoppable gravity pulling us together, and now that I noticed it, I realized it’d been there from the beginning.

“Bad news,” William interrupted.

Ryan stepped to the side and turned to see William, who was standing a few feet from us with a worried expression on his face. He was dressed plainly, to my surprise.

“William,” Ryan said tightly. “You’re kind of interrupting something.”

William gave him a look like he was crazy, then he grinned at the sugar in Ryan’s baby carrier. “Sugar daddy? Nice. And Emily is… Yikes.” He cringed. “Competing for the least sexy costume award?”

I put my hands on my hips, which probably didn’t have the same effect when I was dressed like this.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly. “You uh, wear that well, even if you do look a little bit like a dick in a condom.” He burst out in uncontrollable laughter at his own joke.

Ryan watched him impatiently. “She’s the Bill of Rights, dumbass. And at least she wore a costume.”

William turned to show us his back, which was covered in nickels that had apparently been glued to his suit.

“Nickelback?” Ryan groaned.

“Ding ding. Now come on, I need you two on the roof. It’s a surprise.”

“I’m actually pretty happy right here,” I said.

William waved me off. “Nobody asked the history nerd.”

“Careful,” Ryan warned.

“Ohh, what’s this?” William asked. “I think I’m starting to smell a little something and it smells a lot like love.”

Ryan looked like he was a few syllables away from giving William a black eye. “If I go to the roof with you, can I push you off?”

“So much violence. But yes, you’re welcome to try. I doubt you’ll want to when you see the wonderful little surprise I whipped up, though. Come on.”

“Are we really going up to the roof with him?” I asked.

Ryan sighed. “William is like a dog. You can give him a scrap of food and he’ll stop begging, or you can try to ignore him and he’ll ruin your meal.”

“I can hear you, but you’re also not wrong. I had a plan ‘B’ if you tried to ignore me, and it wasn’t going to be nearly as pleasant.”

We followed William, and the whole time, I was replaying those last few moments with Ryan. I’d felt something there. In his touch. In his eyes. Everywhere. I’d let it soak into me and instead of feeling scary or wrong, it just felt right.

Ever since I’d seen him again for the first time in so many years, I’d been trying to stop myself from listening to my feelings. I finally thought I was ready to open up to them and let this happen.

Of course, that would all be easier if William Chamberson didn’t have the world’s worst timing.

Hailey stopped us just before the elevators. She was dressed as a peanut butter jar, and honestly might have had me beat for the least sexy costume at the party. She had what looked like an almost perfect replica of a giant plastic jar of peanut butter encasing her body, except where her face stuck out of a narrow little window and her arms and legs poked through.

“Wow,” I said.

“Wow to you, too.” She pointed to my costume. “That’s pretty awesome. The Bill of Rights? Is that a play on words, or is it just kind of like… ‘Hey, I’m the Bill of Rights?’”

“It’s what happens when I get so caught up in wondering if I can do something that I forget to stop and ask if I should. What about yours?”

Hailey glared at William, and I saw the most adorable mixture of love and irritation in her eyes, like she wanted to be upset with him but she couldn’t, because whatever he’d done was so perfectly him. “It was supposed to be a team costume. I’d be peanut butter and he was going to be a basketball player.”

“Peanut Butter jam?” I asked. “Nice.”

“It would have been,” Hailey said. “But somebody said they kept getting wedgies from their basketball shorts and bailed on me at the last minute.”

William crossed his arms and tried to look indignant. “No man should have to endure that much fabric going up his ass crack. I’m sorry. Ask The Bill of Rights,” he said, nodding toward me. “I bet there’s something in there about that. The founding fathers would’ve mentioned some sort of inalienable right to freedom from wedgies.”

Hailey gave me a look that said, ‘pray for me.’ She reached for William’s hand. “Come on. I bribed the DJ to play peanut butter jelly time when I give the signal. I need you to be there to dance backup for me.”

William dipped his chin and growled appreciatively. “I knew we were soulmates. I bribed the DJ to play Nickelback. I was just going to stand at the front of the crowd and point to my back. A gentleman would let you go first, but…”

She rolled her eyes and grinned. “You can go first. I can see you’re excited.”

William seemed to remember we were standing there, and he suddenly gave us a little shove toward the staircase. “Use the stairs to get the roof. It’s part of the surprise. Go, go. I’ve got a wife to seduce, and you’d better get out of here so I don’t accidentally seduce the two of you, too.”

“Why do I feel like we’re walking into some kind of trap?” I asked him.

“Because we almost definitely are.”

“Okay, have fun. Make lots of babies. I call dibs on naming the first one! Good luck!” William slammed the door behind us, and my heart sank when I heard the lock click.

“He just locked it,” I said.

Ryan checked the door and sighed. “Yeah.”

“Why don’t you seem surprised?”

“I’m going to be totally honest here.” Ryan looked uncharacteristically nervous, and somehow, it was a mouthwateringly sexy combination. “William and Steve have been trying to set us up since the get-go. You know the whole robbery thing?”

I felt my stomach sinking as my brain started connecting the dots. “Yes…”

“The two ‘robbers’ were William and Steve. I didn’t find out until you left to make the call.”

"But you let me keep thinking it was a robbery. Do you have any idea how many self-defense videos I've watched on YouTube since then? I even made an anonymous post in an online forum talking about my experience, for God's sake!" I was somewhere between pissed off, confused, and oddly enough, relieved. "I could probably fight my way off a pirate boat by now."

“That kind of sounds like a good thing?” he said slowly.

I jabbed my finger at him. The normal self-consciousness I felt was being overwhelmed by a mixture of embarrassment and anger. “Don’t try to turn this into a good thing. I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”

“At the risk of sounding pathetic, I was worried you would think I put him up to it if I told you. And then I thought I’d find a better time, but I was probably just kidding myself because I was worried you’d want nothing to do with me if you found out.”

“The elevator. That’s why you were acting so pissed at him, and why you responded to the firefighter on the intercom the way you did.”

He nodded, but said nothing more. He didn’t try to deafen me with excuses or change the subject. It looked like he was just willing to wait and accept whatever my feelings were on the matter. Easier said than done, considering I didn’t even know how to feel.

“So why keep going along with his scheme just now?” I rattled the doorknob a little more angrily than I planned.

“Well, for the first time, I didn’t think I’d mind it if William tried to force us together.”

I closed my eyes. Even though part of me wanted to reach out and hug him because I knew what he was saying was sweet, he’d still betrayed my trust. I started tearing off my costume, because on top of already feeling like I was the village idiot for not seeing what was happening, I looked like an idiot.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Getting out of this stupid, freaking, costume—urgh!” I lost my footing when pulling my legs up and out of the suit and rolled down the stairs. My world spun, and by some miracle, my face never caught one of the steps, and I was sent bumping and bouncing down until I thudded into the wall at the bottom. My knees and elbows stung a little, but I thankfully didn’t seem to be hurt.

Ryan rushed down and skidded to his knees beside me. He ran his hands over my arms and legs, eyes intent on finding any injuries.

“I’m fine,” I said, shaking him off and getting to my feet. I finished stripping out of my costume, which unfortunately left me in a skin-tight, beige-colored bodysuit that probably was almost as ridiculous as my costume itself. I slammed the costume to the ground and jabbed my finger at him. “And don’t even think about laughing!” I said.

He held up his hands like my finger was a gun and shook his head, but I could’ve sworn I saw him trying to hold back laughter.

I stormed up the stairs. Maybe some doors below us were unlocked, and maybe I could even get to the lobby and escape from all of this, but I just wanted fresh air, and I knew the roof access had to be close. I started to feel how I'd overreacted and wished I'd taken a few more seconds to think, but pride and anger kept me from going back down and saying so. I had a right to be upset with him, but I could unfortunately see his side, too. William had put him in a crappy position, and he'd made the wrong choice, but it wasn't some malicious act. Forgiveness wasn't just an act of logic, though, and right now, my emotions were still broiling.

I pushed open the roof access door and wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry. Apparently, William planned to strand us together on the roof and force us into some kind of romantic evening.

The roof was decorated with string lights, candles, and flowers. Despite the size of the building, the only part of the roof that seemed accessible was just a little larger than two rooms side by side. The effect was a cozy, dream-like little slice of fantasy on top of New York City.

I jumped back in surprise when I saw Grammy standing by the table with a harmonica in her hand.

“Oh,” she said. “There were supposed to be two of you.”

“Uhh,” I took half a step back toward the door.

“Ryan paid me two hundred bucks to come up here and play some music for you two. I didn’t bother telling him I only play the harmonica.” She cackled and gave me a wink.

“Wait, Ryan paid you? He made it sound like William set all this up.”

“This was Ryan, honey. That boy really wants to get in your pants, in my expert opinion. When a man gets out the candles, it’s pretty much a flashing neon sign. They think if they make an effort, the least we can do is unzip and say thank you the way God intended.”

I felt my anger faltering against Grammy’s ridiculousness. “I never saw anything about that in the Bible.”

"Be fruitful and prosper. Something like that. Fruits are babies. You know how babies are made?" She held up one finger in the shape of a circle and pressed her index through it with raised eyebrows. "Beautiful, sweet, lovemaking. That's how. Let thine uglies bump upon the ugly of the hot guy I plugged in... well, shit, I don’t remember the exact verse. But it was something like that.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be any of that tonight,” I said.

“Speak for yourself. I’ve got a date after this gig.”

I opened my mouth, cringed a little, and then tried to do a manual shut-down on my imagination. “I meant between Ryan and I. We had a fight, I guess?”

“Well, good. Fights mean make up sex. Nobody has to formally apologize. You just get naked, do the deed, and then it’s implied that you’re both sorry, or else the sex wouldn’t have been so good.”

I laughed. “Is that also how God intended apologies?”

“No. That’s the way I intended them.” She raised her harmonica to her lips and belted out an ear-piercingly bad string of sounds, then gave me a wiggle of her eyebrows. “Now you let that boy apologize to you. Also, I ate all the shrimp because I got hungry. But there’s some crackers and wine on the table.”

She walked past me to the door and slapped my butt. “Cute little suit. What are you, a sperm?”

She closed the door behind her before I even had time to form a response.

I moved toward the table and saw the discarded tails of about three dozen shrimp. The woman had a serious appetite, apparently. I didn’t get a chance to straighten out my thoughts before the door to the roof opened again.